Open Thread 30, Jan

Another weekend another massive protest against the horror of the Trump administration. The SeaTac and Westlake protests against the anti-refugee, anti-immigrant garbage. It’s going to be tough to maintain it throughout 4 years. But for now it is very heartening to see, and to be a part of these.

There will be more loses than victories for liberals over the next few years. And the victories will often times be things like people who shouldn’t have been detained at all are allowed to go about their lives.

Why, it’s almost as if the entire point of the policy was to pander to the anti-Muslim bigotry of the Christian Right — a group which obiently voted in droves for the high-living libertine in New York.

What do capitalists think of Drumpf’s Muslim ban? The Dow is down 170 points this morning. Looks like the market has spoken. Could it be that people smarter than Drumpf (which is nearly everyone) have figured out what this could do to our economy?

Meanwhile, world leaders are weighing on with expressions of sympathy and sorrow for the victims of the Quebec mosque attack. Except for one. There’s been nothing from the White House but dead silence. Be careful how you interpret this. It doesn’t prove the Current Resident is glad innocent Muslims were murdered. He simply may be busy with more important things, like gutting regulations.

Followup on #4 above: “When Stephanopoulos asked Conway why the order, which repeatedly cites the 9/11 terrorist attacks, covers none of the three countries where those attackers were from — Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates — she said Trump’s order follows the Obama administration’s lead.”

@5, now, does that really make the most sense? Wouldn’t it be a whole lot better to take the contracts and simply boycott the property once it is built? Make it an unbearable humiliation to be seen going in or coming out? That way you get to take the hillbilly money, and put it to good use. And when the property fails it gets sold on the cheap to somebody with class who can spend the savings ripping out the liquor luge and above ground swimming pools.

“now, does that really make the most sense? Wouldn’t it be a whole lot better to take the contracts and simply boycott the property once it is built?”

He stiffs his design and construction teams. It’s not politics. If you are an architect, engineer (me) or contractor (formerly me), you’re a fool to do work for any developer who has a track record of doing that.

This woman is just plain fucking nuts. (And yes, she’s a lawyer; isn’t everybody these days?)

“Kellyanne Conway continues to be a factory for a mind-boggling combination of ridiculous nonsense and terrifying nonsense. On Fox News Sunday, Donald Trump’s top non-Ivanka woman assailed the media for pointing out that last week she described blatant lies as ‘alternative facts’—gosh, why would that draw notice, especially when it’s such a perfect statement of how your boss plans to govern?—then launched into a rant about how media figures who criticized Trump should be fired:

‘Not one network person has been let go. Not one silly political analyst and pundit who talked smack all day long about Donald Trump has been let go. They are on panels every Sunday. They’re on cable news every day.’

“Yeah, funny, being critical of a political candidate—even of the president—is not a firing offense in a country with a free press.”

@14 Apparently these guys, for all their other faults, know enough about economics to be against depressions. Or maybe they source a lot of their industrial empire’s supplies from Mexico and other low-wage countries.

At least one of the leading racist idiot hillbillies in Congress promises to get the wall money from Medicare! Hillbilly Circular Firing Squad Chariman Mark Meadows says he plans to get every cent for the wall by cutting back on Medicare payments. The money’s gotta come from somewhere!

Hillbilly spokesderps like Betsy McFuckingliar are all over the AlternaFacts mediaspere telling anyone who’ll listen that all the Trailer Trump American voters support cracking down on “alternative” religions like Islam with immigration bans and that they are the majority of Americans. So that’s out there now. If you’re a Trailer Trump voter you hate Islam enough to support a ban on Muslims. They are saying it themselves. No “Godwin” needed.

# 9 There you go again blowing smoke out your ass. The market is reacting to the test firing by Iran of another missile, just like last fall. How many times have they violated the treaty you snowflakes loved so much? Your about as funny as dot com bragging about his family all the time.

The travel industry’s already taken a huge hit from Zika. All the cruise lines and hotel chains are offering bargain basement deals for the Caribbean and South America. Alaska and northern Europe are more popular destinations.

@25 “The market is reacting to the test firing by Iran of another missile, just like last fall.”

What missile? No mention of a missile in this CNBC article, just the following comments by people who know a hell of a lot about the market than you do. You were saying something about blowing smoke out of your ass? You need a better quality diaper.

“U.S. equities closed lower on Monday, notching their worst day of the year, as a new measure taken by the Trump administration on immigration sent jitters through the market. …

“‘I think it also has to do with what the immigration policy represents [in terms of] the way the Trump administration is going to operate,’ said John Conlon, chief investment officer at People’s United Wealth Management. ‘The fact is that you’ve got a major policy that was implemented very quickly. That’s causing uncertainty.’ …

“‘The Trump worries are now beginning to set in,’ said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial. ‘We’re having this ongoing worry effect that could overtake earnings and economic data.’ …

“‘While investors were very quick to price in the expected impact that deregulation, infrastructure spending and job growth could have on the U.S. economy, I find it very difficult to believe that after pricing in heavy premiums based on fiscal promises, that investors are not now reconsidering what damage Trump might do by implementing other promises that supplemented an incoherent and ranting political campaign,’ said Jameel Ahmad, vice president of research at FXTM.”

You see, dunderhead, unlike you I check sources and fact-check before posting, because the last thing I want to do is give ammunition to trolls. The thing is, this cuts both ways, and when you shoot off your mouth without doing your homework as you just did, it makes you look like the fool you are, and I too will not pass up an opportunity to make the most of such a situation at your expense.

P.S., is this you, Little Maxie, stuffing your head up your ass again?

“President Donald Trump ‘went out of his way to recognize the Holocaust,’ Spicer said, referring to the statement released by Trump’s White House press office Friday” in recognition of International Holocaust Remembrance Day that contained no reference to Jews.

“It was Bannon who guided the drafting of Trump’s controversial immigration order. According to reports, the Secretary of Defense and director of Homeland Security were not consulted; the State Department was caught unawares. The order, which has roiled the world, reflected not only Trump’s campaign pledge for ‘extreme vetting’ but the white nationalist, anti-immigrant bent of Breitbart News ….”

Roger Rabbit Commentary: So, it looks like our new president, who knows nothing about foreign policy, has turned that job over to Breitbart, and shuffled DoD and State aside. Figures. Well, maybe Bannon is just a temp, until Drumpf’s KGB aides are gotten up to speed.

IF tensor would only read instead of eating the smelly recycled pellets of the early onset senile schismatic IDIOT Roger DUMBFUCK wabbit!

The “seven countries” targeted by President Trump’s 27 January 2017 executive order pertaining to immigration were not mentioned by name and instead originated with “countr[ies] or area[s] of concern” first identified in the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 (expanded to all seven countries “of concern” in February 2016). – SNOPES.COM

All done and approved under Obummer’s sadministration, which Obummer chose not to enforce!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

tensor is as STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPID as evah! Another moron in the annals of HA DUMMOCRETIN loonacy!

From SNOPES.COM, the libtard site where HA DUMMOCRETINS run to for fact checking!!!

Where is “Iraq” in the order. It’s not there. Only Syria is there. So where are the seven nations? Where is the “Muslim ban”? It turns out this was a form of fake news, or alternative facts. Trump didn’t select seven “Muslim-majority” countries. US President Barack Obama’s administration selected these seven Muslim-majority countries.

FACTS, they really suck when you are a useless HA DUMMOCRETIN trying to look “pretty” in pixels.

The program you refer to allows some people who would otherwise need a visa travel to the U.S. without one. The only change on these seven countries is citizens Wpuld be ineligible for viaa free travel and need to apply and get a visa.

That’s EXACTLY the same as saying anyone, visa or not, from these countries is barred.

Nice of you to swallow the newest RightWing spin without thinking. Oh wait thinking,..

@4 There’s more, to wit: “Former New York mayor Rudy W. Giuliani said President Trump wanted a ‘Muslim ban’ and requested he assemble a commission to show him ‘the right way to do it legally.’”

Actually early onset senile schismatic IDIOT Roger DUMBFUCK wabbit, that’s less just shit. That’s NOT what Rudy with the Big Giulianis said on Fox News! TRUTH, an anathema to fools like the DUMBFUCK! http://thehill.com/homenews/ad.....an-legally

When you live in the shit all you know is shit and the early onset senile schismatic IDIOT Roger DUMBFUCK wabbit is FULL OF SHIT!

See how easy it is for the truth to be presented? Except the early onset senile schismatic IDIOT Roger DUMBFUCK wabbit couldn’t provide the truth if it slapped the senile wabbit silly!

@5 If it’s in the business journal you are too late. The architects, engineers, and contractors have already been selected, and have agreed to do the project. These things come out at the point they can no longer be kept under wraps. Rather like the first use of tanks on the battlefield in WWI a hundred years ago. Someone asked what are these things under the white sheets and they were told water tanks, and the cover story held, well tanks for the memories.

A proven liar heard Medved and swallowed the RW spin. The order said immigration. Full stop. Immigration.

Why were people with Green cards being put on planes to return until lawyers and then protesters got involved. Because customs and immigration were given new policy and followed it.

No amount of spin can make that go away. The order is now being called “confusing” and “a great success” by the Administration who told Immigration EXACTLY how they wanted it enforced.

Medved = facts to a deep thinker. Good to know.

But it’s changing the subject anyway. You will need To have a visa still doesn’t equal if you have a visa we will not honor it.

“I have no response so I’ll call you names, move to an unrelated topic admit that I get my Muslim news from a right wing Netayahu cheerleader on an opinion radio show and declare kablammo!” Piddles. A Proven Liar.

So Carl where have all these protestors been for the past eight years when we have been bombing and droning in 6 of these countries for the past eight years. And well Iran has been on our shit list since 1979. Not like we aren’t shooting at their ships and they are shooting back in the Gulf. These are the countries we have been making war during the past eight years and even before that. It actually makes fucking sense to say folks from these nations are persona non grata. The President can do exactly what he is doing. He has played the national security card and the courts will go yes sir, yes sir President Jackson sir. Well Andy Jackson told the court to fuck over the trail of tears and since then the courts usually role over when Presidents play the national security card, and warlike actions cards. So Andy was right when he said the court could enforce their order. Yep that worked well for the court. That Trail of Tears was a wild party or a blemish on US history, but hey Andy was a Democratic President, maybe Trump is taking pages from his book. So the Democrats are trying a bill to defund these actions. So just how does that work? Are we going to remove all those Homeland Security guys from the airports? We are paying them to keep America safe all that 9/11 stuff. Trump’s order doesn’t spend anything extra, though there apparently have been a few extra boxed meals at airports served to people who have been detained at airports by our Homeland Security folks. In other countries Homeland security folks who would be there anyways are simply telling people sorry you can’t get on the plane, something they have done ever since 9/11. Trump is doing something absolutely rational and it will pass muster with the courts. Maybe you all need to pull your heads out of the sand, and take a look at the policies you have supported for the last eight years and beyond, and stop the fucking bombings of people in these nations we are making war on.

Oh the burn again… dr DIPSHITTIUM checkmate-252. Yes those were the original words Rudy used and then EXPLAINED what Donald Trump really wanted. This is why Puddy posted the whole discussion on FOX because DUMMOCRETINS like you take words out of context!

I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order

@42 We are bombing and droning in six of the countries and making war on them. And well Iran is on our shit list since 1979, and all the countries were identified by the Obama administration as sources of terrorists. Makes perfect sense not to give out green cards, or Visa’s to people residing in those countries. So ur doors were open to German’s, Italians, and Japanese during WWII? To North Koreans? Like North Koreans can get a visa even if they want one? Or people living in North Vietnam?

You are arguing sense to the senseless moron dr DIPSHITTIUM checkmate-252! FACTS bounce off that moron like an errant basketball shot clanging off the side of the hoop! That’s what Zika does to the mind!

And folks just where have you all been. Every time I go to Canada with a passport in my pocket I dread if our friendly guy or gal at the border asks me certain questions out of the ten random questions they ask every tenth person coming into the states in a random manner. Where were you born is usually answered with Wheelas Air Force Base. Usually there is no follow up question. If there is well then things get interesting. Usually minor inconvenience and slight delay, though it could lead to being detained at the border, even with a passport. You got no rights at the border. Or when dealing with a border agent within 100 (90?)miles of the border. So yeah not a good time to go visit Canada. Those Canadians are so welcoming as long as you don’t like have a 9 mill on the dashboard, or a hand grenade in the glove box. They can be real jerks then so I’ve heard.

@62 I don’t really agree with the order. Still the man is doing what he said, and it’s actually rational. I think the protests and efforts here are displaced, and if folks were consistent these folks should have been out on the streets many times over the past eight years. Some consistency would be nice, rather than the whole ohh it’s those asshole Republicans doing something our guy has done for the past eight years, but made it sound so nice.

I think the protests are good, just misplaced. Just why are we making war on six of these nations, and well just how long is Iran going to be on our shit list., Until we figure out a repeat to 1953?

The reality is we Americans are not nice people in the world, We are not always going to be nice. Nice is not likely to work with the North Koreans. If the current great leader of that nation were to be ummm assassinated would be much cheaper than oh bombing a rocket on the launch pad. Do we use conventional or do we go with the 10 megaton option there and at North Korea’s test site that is burrowed with tunnels for future tests. The President gets to make these decisions unless of course Congress wants to take power back from the executive branch. Talking about it would be good. rather like all the talking about drafting women into the US military, (Ummm allowing women to volunteer for combat duties means your daughters will be drafted and you don’t do a draft for volunteers, you draft people for combat duty or to be cannon fodder. Isn’t that right RR? You were the combat instructor after serving in Nam so you know the answer is we will be drafting women for combat. So where was that discussion in the Senate? Oh the policies of the Obama administration allowing women to volunteer for combat does not have any unintended consequences. Just don’t read the Supreme Courts decision that oked the current policy of only men need to sign up for the draft.)

Syrian Christians can still get into the U.S., but determining whether a refugee has truthfully stated his/her religion can be tricky. Here’s one way to tell. While ISIS is killing both Muslims and Christians, if ISIS has handed a refugee his head, that increases the odds he’s a Christian.

@61 Actually the President can stop any group from coming into the US for any reason or no reason. Congress didn’t want the responsibility and passed it off to the executive branch, The law was updated to say it should not be done for racial or religious reasons, but doesn’t really prevent the President from doing a ban just for those reasons. The President can do exactly what ?Trump has done. The fact he asked some other people for some help on the language of the order and confirming how to do this does not detract from the reality the President can do this. He can fully shut down the Mexican and Canadian borders not that would be practical. Choosing someplace like ummm Cuba is a lot more practical. We have never had Presidents who would ever do anything like this right? Oh except that Andrew Jackson guy who adopted the jackass as the Democratic mascot.

Mark Adams @53, @59, @68: By your logic, we should have denied entry to German Jews in the 1930s because of issues with that country’s government. Also, don’t forget that the Orlando shooter and one of the San Bernardino shooters were native-born US citizens, and that an immigration ban will do nothing to hinder ISIS efforts to recruit Americans to commit these acts.

@10 The dow finished down 122 points or ,061%. That is pretty much a non reaction. Not like you changed your buy and hold strategy, or have you suddenly sold all your stocks in anticipation of Armageddon? Not like hording money or gold is going to keep a rabbit like you fed or kept in lettuce.

Ignore the tensor idiot @70. Notice the head explosion from the hanging human teabag licker above @66? Now tensor @70? Why? Because you left the reservation by providing FACTS and these HA DUMMOCRETINS can’t deal with FACTS. Hence the silly insipid attacks.

@77 Your comment has nothing to do with #10. Are you referring to #9? Assuming you’re not the dipshit who posted #25 and got his ass handed to him @30, I recommend that before you do anything else, you put today’s 122-point Dow drop into the broader context of the recent market trend.

What you will see is that the market has been in a holding pattern since mid-December. The Dow closed at 19,974 on Dec. 20 and 19,971 today. The broader S&P 500 is very similar: 2,270 on Dec. 20 and 2,280 today. So, we got a post-election “Trump rally” after Nov. 8 that lasted about 6 weeks, followed by a market that has leveled off, seesawed, and gone nowhere, either up or down, in the subsequent 6 weeks.

I happen to feel this isn’t very useful for informing a long-term investing strategy. It suggests the market is fully valued and this is not a good entry point, so the long-term investor whose aim is to accumulate shares and steadily build wealth through capital gains, dividend growth, and reinvestment of the income stream in order to compound his/her returns, should do his/her homework to identify high-quality stocks for the long term, accumulate cash, be patient, and then buy the target stocks on dips or corrections when pricing is more favorable.

One should keep in mind that no one is really any better than anyone else at predicting the market’s future behavior, and that trying to time the market is a fool’s errand. Studies have shown the average individual investor achieves the best results by buying quality businesses, adding to these holdings, and letting compounding do its work. Attempting to trade in and out of the market usually leads to inferior returns.

Studies also show that, over the last 200 years, common stocks have consistently outperformed all other asset classes, including real estate and gold.

Based on this, your suggestion that I get out of the market and put my money in gold or cash is bad advice, and I do not intend to follow it.

@81 Maybe, but savvy investors play the probabilities, and the probability of a moth in Uganda affecting the market if nobody knows the moth exists is pretty small. This reasoning also can be applied to a missile that hasn’t been launched yet, and nobody knows is about to be launched, when the market drops. In that case, the decline is probably due to something else.

@82 to @89 – The most interesting one is the key position at DOJ that hasn’t been filled yet.

“Acting attorney general Sally Yates announced Monday evening that the Department of Justice will not defend President Trump’s executive order banning new arrivals from seven Muslim-majority countries.”

Roger Rabbit Commentary: I suspect this appointment will be moved up on the agenda and addressed tomorrow if not this evening, but it’s too late, the damage has been done. Trump is irredeemably embarrassed by this. The amateurs in the White House got caught napping on this one.

Contrary to what our trolls might assume, the Acting AG’s sneak attack on Trump doesn’t give me a warm glow inside. Yes, it’s soul-satisfying, but more importantly, it reveals these dipsticks have slow reflexes and no peripheral vision. In other words, someone might calculate that a sub-launched missile would blow them away before they reacted, which makes it more tempting to try it. You only have about 5 minutes in that scenario, you know.

“There had been some confusion about how legal permanent residents — also known as green-card holders — would be treated under this new order.” On Saturday, this same senior administration official told reporters that if a green-card holder from one the seven targeted A reporter jumped in: “That’s different from what you said when we were in here yesterday, right?”

“No,” the senior administration official said.

“Do you want me to pull the quote?” the reporter said.

“You can do whatever you want,” the official said.ountries is currently elsewhere in the world, that person would need to apply for a case-by-case waiver before returning to the United States. But then on Sunday morning, the president’s chief of staff went onto a morning news show and said that the executive order “doesn’t affect them.”

“Some of the confusion stemming from the green-card issue is just semantic in nature,” the senior administration official said. “I think some of the confusion stems from the semantic debate about the meaning of the word ‘exemption.’ Again, internally, we’ve been clear on this from the beginning, and we’ve waived people through.”

Our liar will be along to say an Administration spokesperson didn’t call it confusion he should apply for a job. Lying is easy for this Adminiatration

A reporter jumped in: “That’s different from what you said when we were in here yesterday, right?”“No,” the senior administration official said.“Do you want me to pull the quote?” the reporter said.“You can do whatever you want,” the official said.

A guy with an ounce of sense would know he’s doubled down on a losing claim but Piddles A Proven Liar will be back sometime with more name calling and some other “point” about John McClaine and Die Hard being relevant…

Why are any previous appointees still in office? Not only would empty offices have more sense than any likely new appointees, having no one there to enforce executive orders would be far preferable to the self-inflicted auto-humiliation the administration suffered this past weekend.

There’s certainly no need to keep the previous administration’s appointees in office. No matter what happens, Republicans will blame Obama, Hillary, and the Democrats, all of which you’ll gulllibly swallow and regurgitate upon command.

Really, Puddles, slow walking. As compared to what, the Republican process for President Obama’s appointees. How long for Loretta Lynch? And Merrick Garland? And why should they even be considered before completing their ethics paperwork?

If there are court dates on the calendar someone needs to show up. If you fire everyone even at a brisk hiring pace there aren’t enough lawyers to appear in court.

If motions need to be filed, staff familiar with the case need to write them and have clerks who know the filing dates deal with it. A new hire won’t know the details of Pudwhcker vs Department of Reality without putting significant time reading the case file. One week? Not enough.

Some of the ‘swamp’ denizens know where the crocs that can eat it all like to swim and need to guide you past those spots until the new administration is ready to snorkel around on their own.

Institutional learning curve. This administration seems to be further behind that curve than any previous in my lifetime.

And he’s being outmaneuvered by little bureaucrats who graduated from 2nd tier schools and wear shoes from Payless.

Wrong again Lying Liars Shouldn’t Lie AKA Erectile Dysfunction McDotCom! She took her direction from Loretta Lynch/Obummer and was still giving homage to her old paymaster!

From the WAPo… “Yates does not claim that she cannot defend the executive order because it is unconstitutional or because the Justice Department would be unable to offer good-faith arguments in defense of its legality. To the contrary, Yates claims she is ordering the Justice Department not to defend the executive order because it is not “wise or just.” This is quite significant. I am not aware of any instance in which the Justice Department has refused to defend a presumptively lawful executive action on this basis.”

You see DUMMOCRETIN fools, she put her own opinion above the country. So………………

she got Trump’s first “You’re Fired!” Of course this went right over the head of Lying Liars Shouldn’t Lie AKA Erectile Dysfunction McDotCom! Stoooooooooooopid as evah!

Floor votes on cab noms require cloture still. Hillbilly fuckups notwithstanding. So is now the best time to change the cloture rules? Removes all the hillbilly leverage at the beginning of the session. Works for me. Now every single Dem Senator can sit quietly or vote their conscience. And Trailer Trump America owns the entire Trump Taco Bowl record of failure and gets to run on it in 2018. So well played, hillbillies.

Yates (Obama) outmaneuvered Hillbilly Jesus, forced his hand waaaay early in the game and may end up depriving the Trailer Trump leadership in the Senate of some of their biggest political leverage over Dems from Trailer Trump states. Hillbilly Jesus is a fuckup. Still behind in school years after he should have graduated. One week in and hes already fucking up the mids. Looking very weak. And losing too.

Hundreds of “Obamabots” still running Hillbilly Jesus depts. Indeed, thousands more of his appointees buried in the bureaucracy. Which one will be next to shame and publicly humiliate the Hillbilly Jesus?

11 of 12 key appointments at HUD not even named yet. Obama still running your show.

Puddy @125 Boente was a 31 year employee of The Justice Dept. He has the power of the attorney general. He can sign warrants and go after the scum in Washington. Tensor, you used to have a good argument over at Sound Politics years ago. What happened? How did you turn into a piece of shit, while you are on your knees kiss my ass. Senile stupid bunny tell us about the fox holes in Nam again. That was funny.

@126 “She took her direction from Loretta Lynch/Obummer and was still giving homage to her old paymaster!”

Well shit, that’s what happens when you have to leave the old people in because you’re disorganized and don’t have control of your own administration. This is why sensible voters hire professional politicians for top-level political jobs. The White House is not an entry level job.

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